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This report provides results from three studies that collectively find that global warming and climate change are often not synonymous—they mean different things to different people—and activate different sets of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors, as well as different degrees of urgency about the need to respond.
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Citations
... This increase in lexical popularity of 'climate change' had little negative effect on the experts: they understand what these terms represent or mean and can utilise them correctly under the right circumstances. The problem is that these terms are understood and perceived differently by the general public and specific groups of audience (Leiserowitz et al., 2014), and the reality gaps construed by these terms are continuously manipulated and exploited by political motives (Christensen, 2019). ...
... He argues that '"[c]limate change" is less frightening than "global warming"' because '[w]hile global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge' (Luntz, 2002: 132). Luntz's qualitative findings corroborates results from a quantitative study conducted by Leiserowitz et al. (2014) between November 2013 and January 2014, which reveal that Americans participants of the study perceive 'global warming' to have a stronger negative affect than 'climate change', with the former term generating 'significantly more top of mind associations' to nominal groups of severe consequences, such as 'melting glaciers', 'world catastrophe', 'coastal flooding', and 'the ozone hole' than the latter (Leiserowitz et al., 2014: 4). It was later found that Bush switched from using 'global warming' to 'climate change' after the memo (Lee, 2003). ...
Three decades ago, M. A. K. Halliday, the founder of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), presented a paper to AILA in Greece entitled 'New Ways of Meaning: A Challenge to Applied Linguistics' (Halliday, 1990), which introduced the notion of an ecological study of language (Fill and Mühlhäusler, 2001). In this seminal paper, Halliday emphasizes that 'language does not passively reflect reality; language actively creates reality' (cf. Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999) and that 'lexi-cogrammar… shapes experience and transforms our perceptions into meanings' (Halliday, 1990: 65). He identifies three 'problematic spheres' as foreseeable challenges language planning, the register of scientific discourse and of language and prejudice, involving the deployment of resources within the system that constructs sexism, racism, growthism, and classism; and highlights the role of future applied linguists-'to use our theory of grammar… as a metatheory for understanding how grammar functions as a theory of experience' (1990: 69) and 'to learn to educate five billion children … at such a time it is as well to reflect on how language construes the world' (1990: 91), one that contains numerous ecosystems essential to the human survival.
... In other words, less likely to organise and demand political action. 9 University of Wollongong's Sharon Beder notes that Australian dark PR has gone a step further to normalise the problem as "climate variability," to which she adds, "this latest iteration into climate variability may indeed bury public concern." 10 ...
... They added, "scientists often prefer the term climate change for technical reasons, but should be aware that the two terms generate different interpretations among the general public … the term climate change appears to actually reduce issue engagement." 218 Unfortunately, Luntz won. 219 In 2018 the University of Reading's Dr. Sylvia Jaworska analyzed 400 reports from 2000 to 2013 and found that the rhetoric had changed: "The most frequently adopted term in the studied sample is 'climate change,' while other terms such as 'global warming' and 'greenhouse effect' are rarely used." ...
“Think global, act local!” “Be the change you want to see in the world!” “Every little bit counts!” We can all get on board with such sentiments, right? That, of course, is exactly what corporate spin-masters across the world are banking on. By weaponizing such seemingly innocuous yet powerful narratives, change becomes a matter of personal choice, something each of us must slave away at day by day: switching off lightbulbs to save the environment or exercising to shed the weight we’ve gained from consuming junk food. All the while, the corporate welfare tap continues to flow, with over $6 trillion worth of annual subsidies dished out to industries that directly contribute to the deaths of over 5.5 million people each year through diabetes, road deaths, global warming, and other crises. But such framing is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the corporate disinformation playbook. This playbook is the dark matter of activist work: the unseeable element shaping harmful spin across all issues. It has never been reverse engineered – until now. In Dark PR, Grant Ennis – drawing on his decades of experience working in the environmental, philanthropy, and public health sectors – reveals exactly how multinationals go about hoodwinking and manipulating us. In doing so, he lifts the lid on the nine devious frames contained within the cross-industry corporate disinformation playbook: through denialism, normalization, victim-blaming, multifactorialism, and a variety of other tried-and-tested tactics, corporations divert citizens’ attention away from the real causes of global problems, leading them into counter-productive blind-alley “solutions” like ethical consumerism and divestment. Sadly, though, buying Fair Trade chocolate has not and never will save the world. Only by collectively organizing to lobby our governments can we break this destructive cycle of lies and deadly incentives and reclaim control of our lives.
... Generational definitions and age divisions used in this study are based on those used by Pew Research Center (Dimock, 2019; Table 1). A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 5 There is some debate over whether the term "climate change" or "global warming" is more polarizing, and which one is best to use in research, education, and communication (Leiserowitz et al. 2014). At the same time, recent research suggests that there may not currently be significant differences between them (Soutter & Mõttus, 2020). ...
As urgency grows to address global warming, younger generations can play a strategic role in mobilizing communities that have generally been more opposed to climate action and policy, such as political and religious conservatives in the United States. American evangelical Protestants-and white evangelicals in particular-are the largest religious group in the U.S. and also the most skeptical of climate science. There is growing interest, however, around whether evangelicals are becoming "greener," and whether climate attitudes among younger generations are diverging from their elders. We analyze empirical evidence for such generational divides by comparing data from two Climate Change in the American Mind surveys (n = 2,332) with a national survey of Generation Z evangelicals (n = 1,063). Our results show that young evangelicals are highly likely to say that global warming is happening (89%) and anthropogenic (75%), with approximately a third of young evangelicals doing so despite perceptions that their parents disagree. They are also consistently more likely than older evangelicals to express pro-climate positions on a range of belief and attitudinal measures. The results are more mixed when young evangelicals are compared more broadly with the general American public as well as with Generation Z Americans. Notably, however, young evangelicals are more supportive of climate policies, such as funding renewable energy research, than Americans overall, even though they are also more politically conservative and Republican. These results suggest that a generational "greening" of American evangelicals may indeed be taking place, potentially along with some decoupling of climate attitudes from political identity. This may have major implications for the future of climate action and policy in the United States and beyond.
... The term climate change is often used in media interchangeably with global warming (Leiserowitz et al., 2014); however, the latter has a more precise meaning. Namely, global warming denotes the increase in Earth's surface average temperature caused by the greenhouse gases emissions from human activity. ...
Public engagement with climate change is crucial for the success of policies and actions in response to climate change. Though, media have the potential to shape public opinion and attitudes towards climate change, the complexity of the issue and the psychology of human behaviour make the mere information and communication be ineffective in such endeavour. Thus, interactive and participatory approaches to communication promise better individual and public
reception. This paper systematically reviews the empirical literature on
interactive and participatory media for climate change engagement to examine and synthesize the effects of interactive and participatory media on cognitive, emotional, and behavioural engagement, and the existing challenges. A research agenda to fill the gaps in the area of interactive and participatory media is proposed and an integrative model of how media can engage the individual and public with climate change is introduced. The research in this area is multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary and there are also many fields of practice that are involved: media and communication, information systems, visualization and computer science, environmental technology, education. To progress steadily with engaging the public with climate change, researchers and practitioners in the relevant fields should address the existing challenges and gaps. The model of public engagement proposed in the paper could furnish interested stakeholders with a reflective and practical device in this respect. One crucial objective for the future is to empower the individuals and the public as collective entity to act with knowledge, skills, and responsibility towards a sustainable world.
... Despite the more simplified question wording task, the effect of question wording and its interaction with party self-identification on belief in climate change/global warming was found. Lastly, a report containing two nationally representative surveys within the USA found that the American public perceived the two terms, global warming and climate change, differently on several different aspects (Leiserowitz et al., 2014). Generally speaking, global warming appeared to be more engaging than climate change and involved a greater sense of certainty and negativity. ...
... Lastly, separate from their direct replicability and generalizability across contexts, the phenomena itself may change over time. Leiserowitz et al. (2014) state that the connotative meanings of climate change and global warming are dynamic and change sometimes rapidly, and that with repeated use these terms may become synonymous or even swap positions in terms of their dominancy in public discourse. The original study was conducted in the USA during 2009, when Barack Obama, a vocal supporter for environmental policies (e.g., Obama, 2017; United Nations Framework Conventions on Climate Change, 2015), was just starting his presidency. ...
... Of the studies in section 1.3, only Schuldt et al. (2017) collected data since this shift in term popularity. Thus, at least in popularity there has been a change in the use of terminology, with climate change supplanting global warming, as suggested by Leiserowitz et al. (2014). ...
Climate change is one of the greatest threats to humanity and requires immediate action. Schuldt, Konrath, and Schwarz (2011) suggested that beliefs in environmental phenomena can be influenced by the terminology used to describe it: changing question wording from global warming to climate change resulted in a 6.3 percentage point increase in belief in environmental phenomena. This association was moderated by political self-identification, with Republicans being 16.2 percentage points more likely to believe in climate change than in global warming, with Democrats showing no difference. The potential for connotative meanings to shift over time and the sociopolitical changes since the original study, potential policy and environmental campaign implications, and an expansion of these findings to other countries, motivated an attempt to replicate this important finding. This pre-registered study repeated the original procedures in the United States of America and two other countries (United Kingdom and Australia; total N = 5,717). Although question wording no longer had a significant effect on beliefs in climate change/global warming, the association of political self-identification with beliefs in environmental phenomena replicated in all three countries, with Conservatives consistently believing less in climate change/global warming than Liberals. The potential impacts of temporal and methodological differences on the discrepancies between this study's and the original's findings are discussed.
... According to Jaworska (2018), oil industries' greater use of "climate change" instead of "global warming" is a way to identify this issue as a less threatening phenomenon. Indeed, public opinion research indicates that individuals perceive climate change to be less threatening than global warming (Leiserowitz et al., 2014;Whitmarsh et al., 2013). Together, whether a result of strategic business choice or mainstreaming of an issue, these findings suggest that "climate change" is gaining favor among top corporations, mirroring a similar shift in scientific and media usage of the term. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to comparatively analyze how top corporations in New Zealand, Australia and the Global Fortune 500 group communicate about climate science.
Design/methodology/approach
A combination of keyword count and quantitative content analysis is used to develop a reliable set of indicators to measure corporate communication about climate science.
Findings
Just a few corporations mention or explicitly agree with scientific consensus on climate change and few report science-based targets. They report more frequently on societal risks of climate change, as well as business contribution and responsibility. New Zealand based corporations generally do poor reporting compared to Australian corporations, who do as well as the biggest corporations in the world.
Research limitations/implications
There is a further need for cross-country research and for more longitudinal analysis to understand how organizations communicate about scientific issues to its stakeholders.
Practical implications
This paper can inform communication managers about the need to pay attention to how their communication, individually and in comparison with their peers, is likely interpreted by the stakeholders. Managers may attend to scientific consensus messaging to gain stakeholder approval for ambitious business actions on climate change.
Social implications
Organizations are powerful social and economic drivers. Understanding how they interpret and communicate a scientific issue has implications for public and policy discourses and outcomes.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to comparatively identify common and contextual drivers of business communication of complex scientific issues. A reliable scale to measure climate science communication by corporations will be helpful for future researchers to replicate in other sectors.
... The significant differences in mean daily posts are consistent with previous studies that suggest these terms are not synonymous for online audiences. In addition to attaching different attitudes to these terms [Cody et al., 2015;Jang and Hart, 2015;Leiserowitz et al., 2014], our results show that Twitter audiences use global warming and climate change in different contexts. ...
Research suggests non-experts associate different content with the terms “global warming” and “climate change.” We test this claim with Twitter content using supervised learning software to categorize tweets by topic and explore differences between content using “global warming” and “climate change” between 1 January 2012 and 31 March 2014. Twitter data were combined with temperature records to observe the extent to which temperature was associated with Twitter discussions. We then used two case studies to examine the relationship between extreme temperature events and Twitter content. Our findings underscore the importance of considering climate change communication on social media.
... Most Americans, including most Republicans, recognize that climate change is a global crisis that could be mitigated by reducing carbon emissions (Howe, Mildenberger, Marlon, & Leiserowitz, 2015;Leiserowitz et al., 2014;Van Boven, Ehret, & Sherman, in press). Yet the U.S. Congress has failed to act largely because of political polarization over climate policy (see Skocpol, 2013, for review). ...
Everyday partisans evaluate policies partly by following partisan cues, fomenting polarization. However, there is debate over the influence of partisan cues in “real-world,” nonlaboratory contexts. An experiment with a real climate change initiative in the 2016 Washington State election tested whether partisan cues influenced climate policy polarization. In a primary study, 504 prospective voters were randomly assigned to view veridical policy endorsements by partisan elites; this study was followed by a preregistered conceptual replication (N = 1,178). Democrats supported the climate policy more than Republicans. But this difference was greater when Democrats endorsed the policy (with Republican opposition) than when Republicans endorsed the policy (with Democratic opposition). Neither knowledge nor belief in climate change reduced these polarizing effects, and greater policy knowledge was associated with increased polarization. Further, the effect of partisan cues on normative perceptions mediated the effect of partisan cues on policy support.
... Climate change appeared in the scientific literature before the term global warming and it was used for more than forty years whereas global warming was not used until the 1970s (Mann, 2009;Villar & Krosnick, 2011). According to Maibach (2014), climate change can be viewed as consisting of two components, one of which is anthropogenic and the other which is natural and plays a role in past and present climate variability. Global warming on the other hand refers to the anthropogenic component of climate change alone, and only the surface warming associated with it. ...
A review of the causes, consequences and political responses to global warming is the focus of this paper. The term global warming is now popularly used to refer to the concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) in the atmosphere attributed mainly to human activities. Evidence show that, there has been an intense and often emotional debate on the causes and consequences of global warming for many years. Though, the causes are still widely disputed and lack consensuses among proponents, much of the evidence prove to be increasing global warming. It is no longer a prediction-it is actually happening. Major indicators include extinction of many species, population displacement/migration, desertification, famine, drought and chronic food insecurity. Governments, the scientific community and politicians are not unanimous to reduce global warming which emanate from their political positions and conflict of interests. The center of the debate is what causes global warming. In the scientific literature, there is a strong argument that global warming has intensified in recent decades and the changes are more of human-induced greenhouse gases emissions. However, opponents of anthropogenic global warming at the other extreme strongly argue that the cause of global warming is natural and the contribution of humans is minimal. These project the issue of global warming at the forefront of the international political agenda and make it a major political, institutional and environmental challenge of our time. The general objective of the study is to discuss the debates among the politicians and scientific communities on the causes and consequences of global warming. In this regard, the relevant literature in relation to the debates on global warming are reviewed. Finally, global warming is inevitable and no longer a prediction. Alternative actions such as climate change adaptation and/or mitigation measures have to be given top priority besides the reduction of dangerous greenhouse gas emissions.
